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| -Land of the Free |
| Vices Are Not Crimes: Lysander Spooner's Timeless Lesson |
| 2020-01-20 |
| [FEE.org] Nobody but a fool or an impostor pretends that he, as an individual, has a right to punish other men for their vices." Over the years, Americans’ power to make their own decisions has been increasingly displaced by governments. That trend has been justified in part by the desire to control what government views as vice (including an increasing tendency to find vice in environmental effects). Unfortunately, that approach violates citizens’ inalienable self-ownership, unlike deterring crime, which better protects citizens’ self-ownership. It has made government a hyperactive nanny-state bully rather than a protector against bullying. This externally-enforced "self-control" justifies reconsidering Lysander Spooner, whose birthday is January 19. Spooner laid out why our natural right of self-ownership, combined with the right to enter into voluntary arrangements with other self-owners, made government coercion of peaceful people illegitimate, a moral principle not to be overridden just because someone with political power considers others’ choices to be vices. Since we are now far from that ethical standard, we need to rediscover his vision, spelled out in his 1875 Vices Are Not Crimes; A Vindication of Moral Liberty: |
| Posted by:Beavis |
| #14 send 'em to Zamboanga for a Tropical Vacay ... its one way to get rid of 'em.......just sayin' |
| Posted by: 746 2020-01-20 20:21 |
| #13 True, USN. Fine line between the libbetrarians and the lefties. I sometimes think a libbetrarian is just a lefty who's struck it rich and read a bit of Ayn Rand's trash. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-01-20 15:57 |
| #12 Re#8: Why Somalia Lex? Go to San Francisco, closer and cheaper. |
| Posted by: USN, Ret. 2020-01-20 14:03 |
| #11 Reminds moi of the "if it feels good, do it" crep from the 1960s and 1970s. Had to read some French author for a humanities class then who argued that good and evil basically did not exist. As Prote (played by Kevin Spacey!) said in KPAX, "Every being in the universe knows the difference between right and wrong." The problem is that some people just don't care. |
| Posted by: JHH 2020-01-20 12:16 |
| #10 #7 It's not a vice, it's a crime because children are incapable of consent. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-01-20 10:05 |
| #9 I feel that post-modern legalese and even some current concepts in psychiatry evolved from the contrived efforts of a collective of perverts in academia, lawyers, writers... who all had a vision for society. Their utopia would allow every depravity without judging their kind, would in time come to not only accept them but totally deny their victims even the right to feel victimized. Much the same as an Islamic state. Why do I say that ? Because according to my belief there are only a few kinds of demons, spiritual entities. These may manifest in different societies and cultures through heathen and anti-christian practices in diverse forms. But the fruit of their efforts is alway comparable. They bring the same quality of despair to the children of men. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2020-01-20 09:59 |
| #8 Libertarians are whacked. Open borders! P3dophi!ia! Drug legalization! Drug dealers', rogue states' and crime syndicates' favorite black money, cryptocurrency I don't particularly care about labels of 'right' and 'left,' but I know that libertarianism is where the political spectrum meets absurdity and self-destructive foolishness. These people need to spend some time in Somalia and get a glimpse of life without a strong, well-functioning State. |
| Posted by: Lex 2020-01-20 09:09 |
| #7 We do indeed know the difference, and are justified in making laws criminalizing those who indulge in the vice, no matter their arguments that the children enjoy and seek it — or even that it is a method for them to earn their way out of poverty. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-01-20 08:34 |
| #6 #5 But we know the difference. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-01-20 07:49 |
| #5 Like, say, pedophilia Dron. But pedophiles argue that what they want is a benefit to the child rather than a harm, g(r)omgoru. |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2020-01-20 07:32 |
| #4 I only coincidentally read this other piece by a guy who was quoting him and remembered the name 'Spooner' which sounded funny. Or, I could be biased. These days I'm thinking more like the gloved fist than the citizen. ☺ |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2020-01-20 04:18 |
| #3 #1 Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property. Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another Like, say, pedophilia Dron. |
| Posted by: g(r)omgoru 2020-01-20 04:04 |
| #2 And it's also Robert E. Lee's birthday, someone to actually learn from. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2020-01-20 03:50 |
| #1 The article omits that the most radical culmination of Mr. Spooner's verbose work of libertarian passion has been a 'broader understanding of 'consent' in certain circles. I urge you to read another gem of his. Spooner also features in post-modern libertarian and anarchist literature. The moral acceptability of pedophilia, including allowing children to prostitute themselves for reward can be justified using this reasoning. Most pedophiles would have agreed with his lesson in divorcing the moral from the legal and some will probably have this as their creed. Many shall argue that it's not the State's business to intervene in personal vices, but are silent on what happens when personal vices are translated into legislation by the vicious. This has always been the problem with democracy and liberals. They want to create an utopia in which everyone is free, which is impossible as long as there is good and evil. I'm no fan of intrusive gummint, I guess I'm just saying many of the 'Vices' of the 1800s are now rightly called crimes. And Spooner isn't someone we should want to associate the Right with. |
| Posted by: Dron66046 2020-01-20 03:42 |